TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
4A
Write a letter
news@bakercityherald.com
OUR VIEW
Oregon
fails to be
transparent
The lawmakers, lobbyists and insiders in Salem
know how to kill bills. Pressure can be put on sup-
porters to undermine a bill. And a bill can be saddled
with perplexing costs at the last minute.
House Bill 2431 got a heavy dose of both in 2019.
It was about increasing transparency in Oregon gov-
ernment. It had bipartisan support. It was submitted
at the request of the state’s Public Records Advisory
Council. And it was killed.
The bill would have given the public a clearer
picture of how state agencies handle public records
requests. It required all state agencies to report
the number of public records requests they get, the
number of requests not completed after 60 days, the
number of requests for fee waivers and more.
Not an outrageous request, right? Some agen-
cies are already extremely forthcoming about such
matters. Gov. Kate Brown is a good model. Her offi ce
posts a log on its website of public records requests
so everyone can see what is being requested, what
is released and how long it takes. For instance, The
Bulletin and The Oregonian made similar requests
about two weeks ago to see information shared in
the closed-door discussions to decide the metrics for
school reopening. We are still waiting.
As for HB 2431, it died in committee. Misha Isaak,
Gov. Kate Brown’s general counsel at the time, tried
to undermine the bill. He put pressure on Ginger Mc-
Call, who was the state’s public records advocate at
the time, to stop it. McCall wrote in contemporaneous
notes: “Misha conveyed to me ... the (public records)
council … had put the governor in an awkward
position of having to potentially oppose bills herself
instead of relying on stakeholders and lobbyists for
cities, counties and special districts to oppose the
bills.” The governor’s offi ce initially denied what Mc-
Call said was true. Then Gov. Brown said McCall’s
allegation was a surprise to her.
What actually sunk the bill were the costs initially
assigned to it. The Oregon Department of Human
Services claimed it would cost the agency $180,000 to
comply with the requirements. Really? That much?
No. DHS later revised the cost to zero. But the dam-
age was done and the bill was stuck in committee at
the end of the session.
Did the bill come back in 2020? No. Will it come
back in 2021? We shall see.
We requested the latest draft of the report the
Public Records Advisory Council plans to submit to
the 2021 Legislature. HB 2431 is mentioned, but
there is no reference to trying to pass similar legisla-
tion again. While Oregon’s leaders say they believe in
transparency, the last thing Oregonians get is proof
of just how transparent state government is.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions
of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Examining the new poverty
By Christopher F. Rufo
There’s a new American poverty, and
it’s spreading through every corner of
our nation.
The visuals are familiar: boarded-up
homes, abandoned downtowns and
shuttered factories. But underneath
the visible signs of economic decline,
a new social and cultural order has
quietly established itself in all of the
forgotten cities of the American interior.
I spent fi ve years documenting three
of these communities — Youngstown,
Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Stock-
ton, California — for a feature docu-
mentary called “America Lost.” Fifty
years ago, all three were exemplars
of economic and social progress. What
happened next has become convention-
al wisdom: the old industrial economy
was automated and outsourced, the
new high-growth industries were
centralized in coastal megacities and
places like Youngstown, Memphis and
Stockton fell into a half-century of
decline.
But this is merely the beginning
of the story. As I demonstrate in the
fi lm, the new American poverty is not
primarily an economic phenomenon
— it has become a social, familial and
psychological problem that reaches the
very foundations of our social order.
American communities have always
navigated changing economic struc-
tures, but this is the fi rst time that the
social fabric itself has been shredded.
Since Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s
warning in 1965, the “tangle of pathol-
ogy” — family breakdown, labor force
dropout and chronic poverty — has
wrapped itself around every region
and demographic group in the country.
It is now the dominant reality for more
than 50 million Americans.
At the neighborhood level — which is
to say, the level of human experience —
the statistical portrait is devastating.
In Youngstown’s 44509 ZIP code, 41%
of all working-age men are unemployed
or out of the labor force, and 69% of all
families are headed by a single mother.
In Memphis’ 38126 ZIP code, the
numbers are even worse — only 20%
of all working-age men are employed
full-time throughout the year and, out
of nearly 6,000 total residents, there
are only 10 nuclear families.
In short, the process of atomization
that Moynihan feared has reached its
grim conclusion. For people in these
neighborhoods, the norm of intact
families, steady employment and com-
munity participation has vanished.
What can be done? In the recent
debate about what to do with America’s
“forgotten cities,” policymakers on the
left and right have focused on how to
revive these places economically, but
this framing misses the point. The
reality is that, despite a half-century
of debate, neither side has managed to
present a viable solution to the problem
of economic and social decline.
The dominant liberal proposition —
welfare state intervention — has failed
to improve conditions in these com-
munities; if anything, it has solidifi ed
them. At the same time, the dominant
conservative proposition — targeted
tax cuts and moral exhortation — has
lost the cultural foundation that would
make it meaningful.
Unfortunately, as the ideas of both
left and right have exhausted them-
selves politically and empirically, the
status quo remains. The United States
continues to spend more than $1 tril-
lion per year on means-tested benefi t
programs, and policymakers engage
in a fruitless debate about “opportu-
nity zones” and “expanded benefi ts,”
neither of which would address the
deeper social pathologies in places like
Youngstown, Memphis and Stockton.
And yet, despite spending fi ve years
treading across this vast graveyard of
American social institutions, I conclud-
ed my work on “America Lost” with a
sense of hope. Not in any grand scheme
or policy proposal, but in the innate
capacities of human beings.
Contrary to the approach of the so-
cial scientists, who would reduce man
to a mathematical variable, I caught
a glimpse of the inner workings of
human inspiration, which defi es the ra-
tional and the mathematical. I watched
a hardened felon break down in tears
about his scattered family. I saw a
single mother clutching her daughter’s
high school diploma. I saw the tattooed
hands of a wayward father bring his
newborn son into the world.
Ultimately, although the social
institutions in America’s forgotten cit-
ies have been battered down for half a
century, there is something inside the
human spirit that refuses to forget the
meaning of faith, family and commu-
nity. This should be the starting point
for policymakers: how to remove the
obstacles to these universal human
impulses. Only then will we see the
chance for widespread renewal.
land of the free not of the oppressed.”
Penny, your statements are those of
an anarchist, who makes up her own
facts and rules. If you don’t like the
laws, you can be a scoffl aw and suffer
the penalty. Or you can get yourself a
lawyer and sue the governor and the
state. Or you can petition the legisla-
ture to change the laws.
While you’re doing that, I will wear a
mask when shopping and expect other
shoppers to do likewise. That way we
protect each other and those we return
home to.
Gary Dielman
Baker City
Christopher F. Rufo is a visiting fellow in
Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage
Foundation (heritage.org). You can watch
his fi lm at www.americalostfi lm.com/
premiere.
Your views
Ignore laws and prepare to
suffer the consequences
Penny Rienks’ opinion piece in the
Herald’s Oct. 13 edition stated, “We
all know that face masks don’t do any
good.” And, “We should all stand up
against our governor and refuse to
wear face masks.” And, “This is the
OTHER VIEWS
Trump was right in 2012: End the Electoral College
Editorial from The San Jose
Mercury News and East Bay
Times:
President Donald Trump had it
right in 2012 when he said that the
Electoral College was “a disaster for
democracy.”
Under our odd system, the presi-
dential candidate who wins the
popular vote can still lose the presi-
dency. It has happened fi ve times
in U.S. history: Andrew Jackson
in 1824 (to John Quincy Adams);
Samuel Tilden in 1876 (to Ruther-
ford B. Hayes); Grover Cleveland
in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison); Al
Gore in 2000 (to George W. Bush);
and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (to
Trump).
Only in the United States do
voters choose a body of electors
whose only purpose is to select
the national leader. Other nations
that pick their top leader indirectly
generally give the task to a parlia-
ment. Alternatively, in a majority of
the world’s democracies, the head
of state is directly selected by the
voters.
That’s what we should be doing.
The current Electoral College
system — under which each state is
assigned a number of electors equal
to the total of their Senate and
House representation — should be
abolished. Denying the result of the
popular vote fails to refl ect the na-
tional will and skews our national
politics and policies.
The Founding Fathers created
the system to placate Southern,
slave-holding states, which were
allowed to count three-fi fths of their
slaves in computing their share
of the overall representation. Still
today, the Electoral College system
allows states with smaller popula-
tions a disproportionate say in the
outcome.
That’s why Trump and Joe Biden
both visited states like Nevada and
Maine multiple times during the
fi nal three months leading up to the
election, while ignoring more than
half the nation, including states like
California and New York.
All told, according to national-
politicalvote.com, neither Trump
nor Biden made campaign stops
in the last three months of the
general election in any of 33 states
that make up 55% of the nation’s
Electoral College votes. The issues
important to voters in those states
— representing 70% of the nation’s
population — were largely ignored.
Some states are working on a
fairer system that would not require
an act of Congress or a constitu-
tional amendment. Sixteen states,
including Colorado after Tuesday’s
vote, and Washington, D.C., have
agreed to assign their Electoral Col-
lege votes to the winner of the na-
tionwide popular vote for president.
The compact would take effect when
enacted by states with a total of 270
electoral votes. With Colorado, the
states agreeing to participate now
account for 196 electoral votes.
Letters to the editor
Email letters to news@
bakercityherald.com.
California passed legislation in
2011 supporting the compact. The
other states that have signed on to
the agreement are Connecticut, Del-
aware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New
Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode
Island, Vermont and Washington.
The remaining states should join.
The Electoral College is an
anachronism that gives too much
power to a handful of small and
swing states. It’s time to end it.